the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Does anyone know much about a branch of Wing Chun called Pao Fa Lien?

It apparently is a line that developed independently of the more famous Yip Man Wing Chun, and is said to be much much bigger, and with more internal training. Supposedly it has 10 empty hand forms (the 3 that Yip Man style does, plus seven more), as well as several dummy forms and lots and lots of weapons.

Weapons include whip chain, broadsword, kwan-do and tiger fork in addition to the more familiar butterfly knives and long staff. Also, the history of this style is very different to that claimed by the Yip Man Wing Chun. For example, all the stuff about Ng Mui and Yim Wing Chun is not part of the origin myth.

Highly interesting stuff. Is it possible that the Wing Chun we are now familiar with is actually the remnants of a much bigger system?

Yip Man simplified a lot the Wing Chun he learned. I don't know about Pao Fa Lien, but there are quite a lot of Wing Chun versions that are more "complex" than the Yip Man lineage.


http://flowtation.antville.org/tags/Pao%20Fa%20Lien
http://www.wingchunpedia.org/pmwiki/pmw ... ienLineage

Pao Fa Lien has apparently had some influence from Taijiquan

They do push hands similar to TJQ folks

But it isn't some 'original' WC, it's just a separate branch that, as you said, developed indepedently

Chi Sim Weng Chun is another that displays a lot of characteristics of the 'internal' arts, as well as a clear Southern flavour, reminiscent of Hung Gar

I have been thinking about this for some time. What i have been thinking is that ALL Chinese arts are supposed to be fully internal, nad due to the teaching methods, like holding back secrets, many of them lost thier internall essence.

The term "External" maybe should actually be "Just External" to denote a missing aspect all Chinese arts had at one time.

Any thoughts on that?

Check out the Fut Sao Wing Chun branch in New York, taught by SiFu James Cama, student of Grandmaster Henry Leung, you will see a much larger wing chun system there. Not connected to Yip Man

I think that at the fall of the Qing empire in the early 1900's there was a diaspora of martial arts from all corners.

There is a lot of murkiness surrounding martial arts from this period in time and unfortunately, it is this chaos that has been perpetuated into the here and now because of the lack of re-cohesion and the continued encouragement of fragmentation and dilution of martial arts for the purpose of money making and egotistical support.

Also, the ensuing propaganda battles between the commies and the nationalists and how that tied into the nations martial arts further convoluted things.

Ultimately, the only measure of value in a martial art is it effectiveness and applicability. To leave a martial art in the theoretical realm without ever testing it is destructive to the art in question.

In other words, can it be used effectively? Do the methods produce attributable results? That's all you need to know, the rest is mere dross and of no function other than to give a history or what not and imo is not important outside of cultural context.

Technically all style of Chinese martial arts should possess a balance of yin and yang energies; for example, most waijia (external family) style possess an internal lu (way/form) at the advance level; for example, hongquan has iron thread (tiexian); cailifoquan has fojeung (Buddha Palm), fanziyingzhaoquan has fuhu (hiding tiger), etc.

The Fut Sau system is not that much different from Yip Man system, three forms, dummy, knives and staff. Along the way various additions such as little bagua stepping, knife dummy form, etc,were made whether these were authorized by Henry is open to question, frankly I dont know.
There was however a difference in approach, certain moves, bong sau/pak sau were done a little differently and IMO the power was more internalized than in YP's approach.
There are several different, probably legitimate forms of WC, it seems there is a lot of mystery about its beginnings, said to be related to the red boats and qing revolutionaries, all I can say is that it is a very efficient and effective fighting system

There's a style of Wing Chun created by Yip Man's grand-teacher Liang Tsan in his later years. It's called Ku Lo "Pien Shen" (side body) Wing Chun. The style has a unique 22 San-Shou set, and each can be broken down and drilled with a partner.

Check out some of the moves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CvY5yV6ugs